Epilogue
Alison lies rigid in the bed, her back against the pillows, one arm slung over her eyes. She hears her own voice, muted with terror, pleading for her life. There’s a tug on her elbow and her arm falls to her side, her eyes opening to take in the sight before her: Hope - but not quite Hope - her nipples hard, poking through a tight white singlet as she trembles before an outstretched gun.
Alison scrunches her lashes closed again, unable to bear the sight of the love of her life being threatened, yet again, by a thug with a weapon. Crunch.
“Do you think they employ a fluffer on set?” comes the voice from beside her. Crunch.
Alison jerks her head sideways to examine her actual girlfriend .
“A what?”
“A fluffer.” Hope takes another handful of popcorn and crunches it between her teeth. “How else would I manage those high beams for an entire scene? Or do you think they just like, crank the air conditioner to high hell?”
A small laugh chokes out Alison’s throat. “How are you like this?” she asks incredulously. “They’re recreating our trauma for us right there in HD and instead of having flashbacks you’re staring at the actor’s breasts.”
“To be fair,” Hope raises her eyebrows, “they’re my breasts, so it doesn’t count.”
“They’re not your breasts-” Alison begins to argue but her words dissipate as Hope arches her back and stretches luxuriously beside her, nearly dislodging the popcorn bowl on her lap in the process. She smirks at Alison’s eye-roll, which comes just a couple of seconds too late. The truth is, the cute blonde on the screen before them simply doesn’t compare to the real deal in Alison’s bed. Well, Hope’s bed. They’re in Hope’s little cottage but Alison hasn’t gone home in weeks now, so really, whose bed is it actually?
“Oh, wow…” Hope’s gaze is back on the screen and Alison remembers where she’s supposed to be looking. On the TV set version of Alison’s bedroom another blonde has arrived and this one is exceptionally well cast. It’s curves and legs and ruby lips for days an d for a solid minute Alison forgets to feel her fury at the atrocity that is season seven of Universe Below.
On screen Estella Grant rakes her gun down Alison’s cleavage in a way that honestly seems inappropriate, but the Alison on screen seems to be taking it quite well. Her chest heaves with emotion and her breath seems to stutter out as Estella Grant leans in to trace her tongue up the shell of Ali’s ear.
“What in the hell? ” Alison chokes out. “That didn’t happen!”
“I mean, it kind of did.” Hope elbows her in the ribs.
“Hope!” Alison is scandalised as the version of her girlfriend on the screen peels off her singlet with reckless abandon.
“I definitely don’t remember that happening.” Hope’s popcorn hand pauses on the way to her mouth as all three actresses on screen writhe on Alison’s bed, Alison Hartmann at the centre of two blonde bombshells, her throat tipping back in ecstasy as the screen fades to black and the theme song plays.
Alison snaps off the television and tosses the remote onto the covers. She turns to face Hope.
“I’m outraged,” she announces with passion, but then she’s laughing too hard to take herself seriously .
“I’ll bet.” The Hope of her real life is peeling her t-shirt off over her head in direct mimicry of her character on-screen. She lies back against the pillows, soft-skinned, grinning, dazzling. “How terrible, after all this time, for the whole world to see you get to win.”
Alison stops still, right before she leans in for a kiss.
“Win?” She thinks of public humiliation and private terror, of bone-deep betrayal and slippery lies. She looks at the woman in her bed right now, the luxurious heat of her body - the one that makes Alison hiss mine every time she claims it - the soft glow of steady love in her eyes. “Who gives a flying fuck about winning? ” She captures Hope’s warm lower lip between her own, feels Hope’s hips flex against her as she presses her body back into the sheets.
She doesn’t care anymore about society wives in Melbourne, about ex-husbands banished beyond borders, or what words people might whisper about her now if they see her in the streets. She hears Estella Grant’s voice, as close to her earlobe as it was on the screen, promising her safety and peace. Alison’s lived long enough now to know that nothing in this life is a guarantee, that happiness exists on a knife-edge, always teetering, never certain. But, she thinks, sometimes the difference is really just hope.